Bottomline, lenders use your credit SCORES to make loan decisions. Not your credit reports. The details in your credit reports are like the exam questions and your SCORES are the final grade you get. This grade or number is what lenders, bank loan officers, and creditors, will use to approve or disapprove your loan requests or to set your loan interest rates to every type of loan request – mortgage Loans, auto loans, personal loans, credit cards, etc. If you’re on a job hunt, a potential employer may perform a credit check to see if you are financially responsible. Problem is, you’ll need to pay each credit bureau for the privilege of seeing your scores. Your scores are NOT included in your free annual credit report (akafree credit report gov). Fortunately there are services like the ones listed in the chart below which can help you obtain a free credit score.

A credit score is a score based on the information on your credit report. Using unique algorithms to calculate your score. Information such as punctuality of payment such as mortgage loan payments, credit card monthly payments, auto loan payments, etc. Other factors which go into the calculation include the total ratio of debt versus the amount of credit limit you have. ex: You have a credit card where the credit limit is $10,000. Your debt balance is around $3000+. (You still have the ability to spend $7000 on this particular credit card}. What you don’t want to do is to max out on that credit. These factors can influence your credit scores. Length of your credit history is also a factor. The longer you credit history, the better. The size of your credit limits is also a factor. In the US, the a FICO credit score is well known. It utilizes it’s own unique mathematical algo to calculate your score. There are additionally different services that uses its own unique algo to calculate your score. Beacon, Empirica, just to name a few. FICO scores vary from 300-850 wherein a score under 600 is considered “bad” while a score above 720 is considered “good”. Other scores have a different number range and hence a different figure for what’s considered good or bad.

Credit reports on the otherhand contain the detailed transactions that go into figuring out your credit scores. Lenders may quickly peruse your credit reports especially if you have a bad score to point out why your scores are bad. But they ultimately will rely on your scores to set loan interest rates, approve or deny you credit, etc. They do not actually calculate your scores. They leave that to the aforementioned services and their algos. Potential employers, landlords, etc often utilize your scores as well. Not just lenders. But your free annual credit report from does NOT include your scores. Several firms – usually credit monitoring services and identity theft protection services – will often provide your credit scores during their free trial offer period. You can also purchase your scores individually from each of the 3 major credit bureaus – TransUnion, Equifax, and Experian.

Does subscribing to credit monitoring services make sense?

Consider these facts: Over 1 in 10 americans will become a victim of identity theft or credit fraud. Average losses incurred are said to be over $5000 per individual. This is when you rely solely on paper statements to monitor your credit. On the otherhand, studies have shown how those who utilize credit monitoring services only reach losses of around 1/10th of that amount ($500+) because they’re quickly alerted to any fraudulent credit activity. And since pretty much all credit monitoring services have some sort of identity theft insurance in place (up to $1 million in some cases), any losses you’d incur from identity theft or credit fraud is quickly recovered.